How do you go about beating up bad guys?

  Daniel had thought about this question a lot lately. In the movies, it was simple. The master lived on a mountain, the villain terrorized the valley, and the hero descended with righteous fury to set things right. Clean. Simple. Purposeful. The music swelled, the fight choreography dazzled, and by the end credits everyone knew who the good guys were.

  But San Francisco didn't have mountains or valleys. It had alleys and street corners and the constant hum of traffic bleeding through thin apartment walls. Villains didn't announce themselves with dramatic declarations or sinister laughs. They just existed. Blending into crowds, waiting for opportunities, looking like everyone else until they weren't.

  And heroes? Real heroes?

  What did they even look like?

  Wednesday night. Two weeks after the warehouse. Daniel stood in his small bedroom, looking at himself in the mirror that hung crooked on the wall above his dresser.

  Black hoodie, hood pulled up to shadow his face. Red headband tied across his forehead, the fabric slightly faded from years of sitting in a drawer. It was the kind you saw in every martial arts movie from the era, keeping hair back, giving that classic look. Below it, a black bandana pulled up over his nose and mouth, leaving only his eyes visible. Knuckles wrapped in athletic tape under his sleeves, the same tape he used for boxing.

  He looked like... well, he looked like he was trying. Like a teenager playing dress-up, pretending to be something from a movie. But at least no one would be able to identify him. That was the point. If he was going to do this, really do this, he needed to be someone else. Someone without a face or a name that could be traced back to an apartment on Clay Street.

  "You really doing this?" Henry asked from the doorway. He was leaning against the frame, arms crossed, expression caught somewhere between skepticism and excitement. "We haven't even tried the rest of the techniques on our list. Ghost Step, Push Hands, all that stuff."

  "This is just a test run, remember?" Daniel adjusted the headband, trying to get it to sit right. "We can learn the rest after we make sure Tiger Claw works repeatedly in real situations. Besides, we already beat those guys in the alley. And my boxing footwork is solid."

  "The headband feels a little too flashy."

  "That's the point." Daniel turned from the mirror to face him. "The heroes always had something. A look people recognized. The White Phoenix had her white robes. The Drunken Warrior had his red handwraps. Master Wulong had the scar across his eye. You need something that says 'this is who I am' without actually saying who you are."

  "You look like you're about to enter a karate tournament."

  "Shut up."

  "But," Henry said, grin breaking through, "it works. It actually kind of works."

  Daniel grabbed his skateboard from where it leaned against the wall. The grip tape was getting worn, edges peeling up, but it still rolled smooth. "You bringing the camcorder?"

  "Yeah. For documentation." Henry held up the Sony Handycam, the same one they'd used in the warehouse. The red recording light was dark for now. "We should record this stuff. For science."

  "For science."

  "And because twenty years from now, when you're a legendary martial artist with your own school and students and maybe a movie deal, we'll want proof of where it all started." Henry's grin widened. "It'll be like a documentary. 'Hidden Dragon: The Early Years.' I can see the poster already."

  "I'm not going to be a legendary anything."

  "Not with that attitude."

  They headed out into the September night.

  The air was cool but not cold, carrying the familiar smells of Chinatown after dark. Roasting meat from the restaurants still open, incense from somewhere, garbage from the bins that hadn't been collected yet. Fog was rolling in from the bay, softening the edges of the streetlights, turning the neon signs into smeared halos of color.

  The thing about being a real hero, Daniel had realized, was that you couldn't just wait for trouble to find you. That was reactive. Passive. The bad guys set the terms, chose the time and place, and you were always playing catch-up.

  In Legend of the Righteous Dragon, the hero investigated rumors, followed leads, positioned himself where evil gathered. He learned the patterns of the criminals, the streets they favored, the times they struck. He was active. Intentional.

  He didn't just react. He hunted.

  Daniel thought about that as he and Henry walked down Grant Avenue. Quarter past eleven. The street was quieter now than it had been a few hours ago, most of the shops closed, metal security gates pulled down over storefronts. Fewer tourists. Fewer families. The people still out were different. Harder to read.

  But not empty. Never empty in Chinatown. The neighborhood didn't sleep, just changed shifts.

  A group of men stood outside a closed restaurant, smoking cigarettes and talking in low voices. Daniel watched them as he passed, trying to read their body language without staring. Just guys unwinding after work. Kitchen staff, probably, based on the grease-stained aprons one of them still wore. Not his business.

  An elderly woman pushed a shopping cart full of flattened cardboard and crushed cans, the wheels squeaking against the sidewalk. Henry offered to help her push. She waved him off with a sharp gesture and kept walking, muttering something in Cantonese that might have been thanks or might have been a curse.

  The same Chinatown Daniel had known his whole life, just seen from a different angle now. Through the eyes of someone looking for trouble instead of avoiding it.

  But somewhere out there, someone was getting hurt. The news articles he'd been reading had made that clear. Eighteen robberies in the past month. Twelve assaults. Three businesses broken into. All of it concentrated in these few blocks, this neighborhood that the rest of the city seemed content to ignore.

  "You think we'll find anything?" Henry asked, keeping his voice low.

  "Hope not." Daniel scanned the street ahead, the alleys branching off to either side. "But probably yes."

  They walked deeper into Chinatown, away from the main tourist streets. The buildings here were older, more cramped. Cheaper rent, dimmer streetlights, fewer cops driving by on patrol. The grocery stores and markets were closed, metal gates pulled down and padlocked. A few restaurants still had lights on, but most of the block was dark.

  This was where things happened. The in-between places, the gaps in the city's attention.

  Then Daniel heard it. Shouting, two blocks down. Male voices, aggressive, overlapping.

  He looked at Henry. Henry nodded, already raising the camcorder to his shoulder, thumb finding the record button.

  "Stay behind me," Daniel said. "Just film. Don't engage."

  "Obviously. I'm not the one with superpowers."

  "It's not..." Daniel stopped. No point arguing semantics. "Just be careful."

  He moved toward the sound, footsteps quick but quiet on the wet pavement. The shouting got louder as he approached. An alley between two buildings, narrow, barely wide enough for a delivery truck. A single light fixture hung above a back door, casting harsh shadows.

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  Five guys had someone pressed against the brick wall. A teenager, maybe sixteen, wearing a Galileo High jacket that was now torn at the sleeve. His face was pale with fear, hands raised in surrender.

  One of the attackers had the kid's backpack, dumping its contents onto the ground. Textbooks, notebooks, a calculator scattering across wet concrete. Another was going through the kid's pockets, pulling out a wallet, some keys. The other three stood in a loose semicircle, blocking any escape route, laughing at something one of them had said.

  Daniel stepped into the mouth of the alley. "Let him go."

  All five turned.

  The one holding the backpack, a heavyset guy in a Giants cap, laughed. "The fuck? Get lost, kid. This ain't your business."

  Daniel didn't move. Behind him, he could feel Henry's presence, could see the red recording light reflected faintly off the wet bricks.

  "Is that a camera?" one of the guys asked, squinting past Daniel into the darkness.

  "Yeah," Henry said, voice steady despite what had to be fear. "Sony Handycam. Pretty good in low light, actually. The CCD sensor is really impressive for its price point."

  "Are you FILMING this?"

  "Yep. For a documentary."

  The five guys looked at each other, confusion breaking through the aggression. This wasn't how victims were supposed to act. This wasn't in the script.

  Daniel used the moment. His fingers curved into the claw shape, body settling into stance without conscious thought. The qi stirred in his dantian, warm and ready. "Last chance. Walk away."

  "Or what?" Giants Cap stepped forward, dropping the backpack. "You and your weird friend gonna..."

  Daniel moved.

  Tiger Claw to the lead guy's extended arm, the one he'd raised to gesture dismissively. The spiral of qi released through Daniel's fingertips, hooked fingers connecting with flesh. Four red welts appeared on the guy's forearm as he stumbled backward into one of his friends, face contorted in shock.

  "AH! What the FUCK..."

  Second guy swung at Daniel before the first had even stopped stumbling.

  Daniel slipped it. Boxing footwork, weight shifting, head moving off the center line just enough. Tommy's voice in his head: Don't block what you can dodge. Don't dodge what you can slip. And countered with a claw strike to the throat, pulling the power at the last second. Just enough pressure to fold the guy over, gasping, hands going to his neck.

  Third guy came from the side, trying to tackle.

  Daniel pivoted, let the guy's momentum carry him past, and caught him with Tiger Claw to the ribs as he went by. The hooked fingers found the soft space between bones, dug in, released. The guy wheezed, dropped to one knee, clutching his side.

  Fourth guy looked at Henry, at the camera, then back at Daniel. Something calculating in his expression. Then he charged, not at Daniel but at the cameraman.

  "Are you seriously still recording this?!"

  "Yeah," Henry said, adjusting the zoom with remarkable calm. "You're doing great, by the way. Very authentic bad guy energy. Really selling the menace."

  "What?!"

  Bad choice, going for Henry.

  Daniel intercepted with three quick steps, dropping his weight as he moved. The words formed in his mind without conscious thought: Hungry Tiger Descends from the Mountain. His hand came down in that different arc, the one that drove everything toward the earth, and his clawed fingers caught the guy's shoulder with the weight of gravity behind them.

  The guy hit the pavement hard. Stayed down.

  The fifth guy, the one who'd been going through the kid's pockets, pulled out a knife.

  Daniel's heart spiked. The blade caught the light, cheap steel but sharp enough to kill.

  The guy lunged forward, leading with the knife the way people did in movies. Arm extended, weapon first, body following.

  Daniel sidestepped. Let the thrust go past him, close enough to feel the air move. And drove Tiger Claw into the exposed armpit, that vulnerable junction of nerve and muscle where the arm met the body.

  The guy's grip spasmed open. Fingers splayed wide, tendons seizing. The knife clattered to the wet pavement with a sound like a bell being struck wrong.

  Daniel kicked it away into the darkness. Took a deep breath.

  Not like a knife would scare him much now, not with qi-hardened fingers that could scratch concrete. But it still brought back memories.

  He pushed the thought down. Later. Deal with it later.

  Five guys, all down or backing away. Two groaning on the ground, one clutching his ribs, one scrambling backward on hands and knees, one staring at his empty hand where the knife had been.

  The teenager in the Galileo jacket was frozen against the wall, eyes wide, mouth hanging open.

  "You okay?" Daniel asked, keeping his voice calm.

  The kid nodded. Couldn't seem to form words.

  "Get your stuff. Get out of here. Go home."

  The kid scrambled to gather his scattered belongings, shoving everything into the torn backpack without looking, then ran past Daniel and Henry and out into the street. His footsteps faded quickly into the night.

  Daniel turned back to the five men. They were getting up now, helping each other, backing away as a group. One of them was staring at Daniel's hand, at the way his fingers were still curved into claws.

  "Who the fuck are you?" the guy asked.

  The question hung in the damp air.

  Daniel paused. Thought about it. In the movies, this was always the moment. The hero's declaration, the name that would echo through the story, that would make the villains tremble and the people hope.

  He'd thought about this. Planned for it, even, in the quiet hours when he couldn't sleep.

  "Hidden Dragon," he said. His voice came out steadier than he expected, lower, more certain. "The name is Hidden Dragon. And this stray fist keeps strays in line." He let the words settle, then added: "You want another beating, stick around. Otherwise, get lost."

  Silence.

  Then one of the guys, the one who'd had the knife, pointed past Daniel at Henry. "Why is he still filming?!"

  "I told you," Henry said, helpful as ever. "It's for a documentary. You guys want to say anything for the camera? Last words? Statements of remorse? We can edit it together real nice."

  "What the fuck is wrong with you people?!"

  They ran. All five of them, limping and cursing down the alley, disappearing around the corner into the night.

  Daniel stood there breathing hard. The qi was settling in his body, wild energy slowly calming. The familiar exhaustion crept in at the edges, that hollow feeling he'd learned to recognize as depletion. His hands were shaking slightly, adrenaline and qi burn mixing together.

  Henry lowered the camera. The red light blinked off. "That," he said, "was amazing."

  "You kept filming the entire time."

  "Yeah. That's my job." Henry was grinning, that manic post-danger grin that Daniel was starting to recognize. "Also, 'this stray fist keeps strays in line'? What the hell was that?"

  "It just came out."

  "It sounded awesome." Henry laughed, rewinding the tape slightly to check the footage on the tiny viewscreen. "Got the whole thing. Your technique, the way they went down, the dramatic speech at the end. This is absolute gold, Daniel. Documentary gold."

  Daniel pulled the bandana down from his face, wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. The headband was soaked through. "We should go. Before cops show up or those guys come back with friends."

  "Yeah. Good point."

  They walked back toward the main street, Daniel's legs slightly shaky from the qi burn. Normal pace. Just two teenagers heading home after a late night. Nothing to see here.

  "Hidden Dragon," Henry said, testing the name out loud. "It works. It actually works. Way better than Kung Fu Kid or Tiger Boy or whatever people would've called you otherwise."

  "People aren't going to call me anything. We're not telling anyone about this."

  "Right. Totally secret." Henry patted the camcorder. "Except I have video evidence of you declaring yourself a vigilante hero. With a catchphrase and everything."

  "That's for the documentary. Which no one is going to see."

  "Sure," Henry said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Documentary. Our eyes only. Completely classified."

  They reached the bus stop on the corner, sat down on the metal bench to wait. The fog had thickened while they were in the alley, turning the streetlights into fuzzy globes of orange. A car passed, headlights cutting through the mist, then disappeared around a corner.

  The bus came ten minutes later, brakes squealing as it pulled to the curb. They climbed on, tapped their Clipper cards, found seats in the back where no one would pay attention to them.

  Daniel looked out the window at Chinatown passing by. Neon signs blurred by fog, dark alleys between buildings, restaurants and apartments and shops, the whole chaotic beautiful mess of it. His neighborhood. His home.

  The movies always made these moments so dramatic. Lightning and thunder, swelling orchestral music, the hero's name echoing across mountain peaks while crowds cheered below.

  Real life was quieter. It was a dark alley and a stupid headband and words that felt right even if they sounded cheesy when you said them out loud. It was choosing to walk these streets when you could be home safe. Choosing to step into danger when you could walk away. Choosing to help when help was needed, even if no one asked you to.

  "Hidden Dragon," Daniel said again, quietly, just to himself.

  His neighborhood now. His responsibility.

  Hidden Dragon. That's who I am.

  The bus rumbled on through the night.

  Back at the alley, from across the street where she'd pressed herself into the shadow of a newspaper kiosk, Amy Chen lowered her own camcorder.

  She was thirty-two years old, five years into her career at the San Francisco Chronicle, and she'd thought she'd seen everything this city had to offer. Gang violence, political corruption, the quiet desperation of communities abandoned by the institutions meant to protect them. She'd written about all of it.

  But she'd never seen anything like this.

  She'd been walking back to her car after interviewing a restaurant owner about the recent string of robberies. Mr. Liu, seventy-three years old, who'd had his register cleaned out twice in the past month and couldn't afford the insurance premiums anymore. Another story about Chinatown's invisible crisis, the kind that would run on page six and be forgotten by the next news cycle.

  Then she'd heard the commotion. Shouting from an alley. And because she was Amy Chen, because she never could leave a story alone, she'd pulled out her camcorder and started recording.

  She'd caught the last part of the fight. Most of it had happened too fast, too deep in the alley for her position to capture clearly. But the aftermath. The declaration.

  She rewound the tape, watched it again on the tiny viewscreen.

  A figure in a black hoodie, red headband visible even in the dim light, standing over five men who scrambled away like they'd seen a ghost. His posture was confident, controlled. The stance of someone who knew exactly how dangerous he was.

  "Hidden Dragon. The name is Hidden Dragon. And this stray fist keeps strays in line."

  And his friend filming everything like they were making a documentary.

  She made a mental note. Started planning her article.

  This was a story. A real one.